Best Live Show

[chilli]

There's been a couple posts around commenting on how awesome certain bands were when they saw them live. This makes me curious.

Who's the best band you've ever seen live?
Or the best live show you've ever been to?

For me, the best was Rage Against the Machine at Big Day Out earlier this year.

Second best, October sometime, Woden Youth Centre. Monster Elephante played a gig and that was an intense experience for me. That night, in particular, they were better than all the other famous bands I've seen live (and I've seen some good ones). It's a big call but they were fuckin' good, man!

[morganq]

I'd say some of the Monster Elephante shows I've seen have been the best live shows ever. Rage was pretty epic, what with it being Rage and the amount of people etc., but Elephante are local and that somehow has a massive impact on me. Also, The Mars Volta. Tetragrammaton, the lighting was perfect, and it just made it the bset 20 minutes of my life.

[Pete]

I've seen a lot of shows that caught be for different things.

Death By Stereo had that raw energy, and a competition too see who could do the best guitar solo while smoking a bong. The singer won.

Karnivool had the old UC Bar packed out, all 800 people moving screaming the words. The atmosphere was probably the best I've ever experienced at a Canberra show.

The Red Paintings/Battle Circus. The combination was amazing. BC were the perfect openers, and TRP blew me away.

[aaron]

Rage were pretty good, they were my favorite band for like 6 years and i finally got to see them live.
But i find it kinda hard to listen to them religiously when they release no new stuff at all.
NOFX we're great, shit set list tho.
The first time i saw The Mars Volta at the BDO a couple of years ago was good.
Second time at the hordern pavilion was boring.
Frenzal both times were amazing.
Right before Slowburn kicked out Dave they were fucking great.

[declanptjy]

I haven't yet experienced a "great" show, I don't think. At least I've never had the same feeling you guys have had where you've left and been like "that was the greatest thing ever!"

I've seen quite a few good shows that I've enjoyed though. Most of them were just here in Canberra. The Living End would be the biggest and I've enjoyed smaller ones like Monster Elephante, Rubycon, Slovac, Astrochem and Paqman.

[chilli]

Dec 25, 2008 7:27:45 GMT 10 aaron said:

Rage were pretty good, they were my favorite band for like 6 years and i finally got to see them live.
But i find it kinda hard to listen to them religiously when they release no new stuff at all.

But they were 4 albums of pure perfection that can last a lifetime.
However, I do know what you mean. Nightwatchman and One Day As A Lion just don't cut it!
Did you see them at BDO or the sideshow? Or both even!?

Dec 25, 2008 7:27:45 GMT 10 aaron said:

The first time i saw The Mars Volta at the BDO a couple of years ago was good.
Second time at the hordern pavilion was boring.

I can barely believe the boring part!
Too much jamming? Or bad song choice?
Or just boring in general?

[morganq]

Perfect amount of jamming I thought. Those times you just gotta close your eyes and drift off. And then all of a sudden they're going crazy and you don't even know how they got to that point, so smoothly, over such a long period of time, they must've just been getting slowly louder and louder for 20 minutes. OUTRAGE(againt the machine)OUS!

[aaron]

Dec 25, 2008 11:09:32 GMT 10 chilli said:

Dec 25, 2008 7:27:45 GMT 10 aaron said:

Rage were pretty good, they were my favorite band for like 6 years and i finally got to see them live.
But i find it kinda hard to listen to them religiously when they release no new stuff at all.

But they were 4 albums of pure perfection that can last a lifetime.
However, I do know what you mean. Nightwatchman and One Day As A Lion just don't cut it!
Did you see them at BDO or the sideshow? Or both even!?

Dec 25, 2008 7:27:45 GMT 10 aaron said:

The first time i saw The Mars Volta at the BDO a couple of years ago was good.
Second time at the hordern pavilion was boring.

I can barely believe the boring part!
Too much jamming? Or bad song choice?
Or just boring in general?

I saw Rage at the BDO.
And The Mars Volta when they played at BDO had a half hour set just played the songs with a small bit of jamming.
But at their own show, they played i think 5 songs in 2 and a half hours.
Like i don't fucking care if you can play 50 notes a second, just play some songs.
Such a pretentious band.

[declanptjy]

Exactly! Jamming sucks!

[aaron]

I'm not sure if that was sarcastic or not but I'll take it as sarcasm.
Sure if you're writing songs with the band you can jam it out and whatever, but on stage it's just boring, i don't wanna watch a band play bullshit when they've written good songs that they could play instead.

[declanptjy]

No, I'm serious. I hate the idea of bands jamming on stage instead of playing songs, especially for extended periods. Playing little things in between songs or intro's is fine, but none of this "let's just have a jam."

I agree with you completely. I'd hate to pay good money to see a band play their songs and just have them jamming for hours.

[morganq]

I pay money (or usually download for free) albums to listen to them played like they're written. I go to gigs hoping for something I haven't heard before. I've nothing against the attitude of 'I don't like jamming', but my attitude is I love jamming. If I wanted to see a band play exactly how their album sounds... well I probably wouldn't. Not just little improvisations, I enjoy extended jams. They are songs in themselves. Just because they don't have all the verse, chorus, bridge, vocals stuff you're used to, doesn't mean it's not a song.

I think for me it's like a solo. Alot of guitarists improvise their solos onstage, and it's like hearing what they're feeling, caus they're just playing exactly what they feel, obviously. Long jams are like that, but with a group of musicians all doing it at the same time. And you get to actually hear the soul of the band, as well as the individual band members.

Anyway, that's why I would pay good money to go see gigs consisting purely of improvisation.

[declanptjy]

I think part of the reason I'm not a fan is that an improvised jam never sounds as good as a planned out, rehearsed song. So it's like getting less than what I know the artist can do. That said, I like it when bands mix up their songs with little jams in parts and things like that to keep it fresh.

But overall, I think jams (especially extended) are almost an insult to the audience and pretty selfish or arrogant even. After all, you're playing to and for the audience who have paid to come and see you.

I guess it's all about timing. If you can do an interesting jam, that lasts a minimal amount of time, that's awesome.

[fueltothefire]

I'm all for an extended jam, as long as the band know what they're doing.
Band like The Mars Volta have a seemingly endless flow of musicians in and out of the group, and I think it shows in their jams.
Whereas bands like Incubus, they've been playing together for so long (new bassist's only been their a few years, but still), that when they jam it's like an ethereal musical orgasm.

It's just stupid to say that all jamming is shit, or all jamming is good, because like all things, sometimes it's done well, and other times you'd rather shoot yourself than have to experience it. (a.k.a. a 20 minute vocal solo from The Pogues)